Detroit’s Schools Become Magnets Drawing Population Together

Detroit schools emergency manager Roy Roberts has tried to chip away at deficits, classroom failings and safety threats to students which he said undermine Michigan’s largest city. Photographer: Carlos Osorio/AP Photo

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Detroit’s schools, one-third their
former size from the loss of more than 100,000 students in the
past decade, are leading an effort to rejuvenate the city by
casting themselves as neighborhood anchors that help parents as
well as pupils.

State money and donations from corporations such as General
Motors Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are helping create so-called
community schools that not only improve learning but are hubs
for social services, recreation and even job training. The
system’s state-appointed emergency manager, Roy Roberts, a
former GM executive, said the schools are the key to reversing
civic decline by creating more stable, safe neighborhoods where
poverty and blight has spread.

“You can’t separate what needs to happen in the city and
the school district,” said Roberts, 74, who will leave his job
May 16 and has made community schools a linchpin of his five-year plan. “If you don’t fix the school system, major companies
aren’t going to move here.”

Neither will new students, Roberts said during an event
April 29 to announce a $1.5 million grant from JPMorgan. The
money will help make a high school and two elementary schools
centers for social services, recreation, financial counseling
and even home-repair loans.

“The way to improve the quality of life for all, and
increase the city’s health, is by stabilizing neighborhoods,”
said Sarah McClelland, market president for Chase Michigan.

Roberts also plans to expand preschool classes and after-school art and music sessions beginning this fall.

Vast Spaces

Detroit, with 139 square miles (360 square kilometers) and
700,000 people, lost one-quarter of its population since 2000.
That makes it more difficult to deliver basic services to
residents scattered in an area larger than Boston, San Francisco
and Manhattan combined.

About 40 percent of the lots are vacant or unused, creating
safety and fire hazards, according to a 50-year blueprint for
revival developed by a nonprofit project, Detroit Future City.
The plan calls for consolidating residential spaces and turning
sparsely populated areas into green spaces.

The district’s 117 schools could be at the center of the
urban villages -- if they can be revived.

Since 2002, enrollment has fallen to about 52,000 from
164,000, and about 200 schools have been closed. Last year, 15
of those left were deemed so bad academically they were placed
under a new state program to provide more intense instruction.

The district has twice been taken over by the state, from
1999 to 2004, and again in 2009 under former Democratic Governor
Jennifer Granholm.

Core Curriculum

Other cities have transformed schools into gathering
places, including Grand Rapids, Michigan. Cincinnati schools
increased enrollment, graduation rates and test scores since
2000 by expanding to include social services and even health
clinics, according to the Washington-based Coalition for
Community Schools.

“Any time you can get the community to wrap their arms
around a school, they help with attendance, they help
academically, they own it. That’s what we want,” Roberts said
at the April 29 event.

He said he’s talked to city Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr,
about coordinating efforts. Orr has no specific strategy for
schools, though he will coordinate as needed, said his
spokesman, Bill Nowling, in an e-mail.

Clearing Land

The state has stationed welfare caseworkers in 91 Detroit
schools, calling them “success coaches” who counsel students
and families. The goal is to reduce truancy and provide easier
access to social services. Eighty-two percent of Detroit’s
students come from low-income families and qualify for free or
reduced-price lunches.

Four schools have health clinics and there are plans for
more, said David Akerly, spokesman for the Michigan Human
Services Department.

Meanwhile, a state program is tearing down vacant homes
around the schools, using $10 million from Michigan’s share of a
national court settlement with banks over foreclosure practices.
Clearing the surrounding area of havens for predators meant
bigger enrollment and better attendance at J.E. Clark
Preparatory Academy, where 100 houses have been razed nearby,
said Principal Demond Thomas.

“I wouldn’t want my child at an elementary age having to
walk past a large number of those houses,” Thomas said. “With
those houses gone, the kids feel safe.”

Intimate Knowledge

Keniqua Bonner, a caseworker at Clark, said she can assess
students, parents and their financial needs and keep kids from
skipping school.

“It’s been an eye-opener,” Bonner said. “I’ve been in an
office for 13 years, and I did not have the kind of relationship
with clients I do now.”

Despite assertions of progress by Roberts and school
officials, state receivership has been a sore point for many
residents. It hasn’t stopped the hemorrhage of students, said
activist Larry Hightower, 61.

Hightower said the elimination of district posts hastened
the exodus. He said many Detroit school employees, embittered by
losing jobs, put their children in other schools.

Roberts, in a report last week, painted a hopeful picture
of a district that’s rebounding, albeit slowly.

Test scores are rising, such as an 11 percent increase in
eighth-graders who attained at least a “proficient” level in
reading.

The budget is balanced, the deficit will be eliminated by
2016 and crime at schools has dropped, Roberts reported.

Still, in 2012, nearly one of every five high-school
students dropped out, according to a state report. In 2011, one
of every four did.

Maybe Mayor

Improved academics, and keeping students engaged, is the
goal of a $1.5 million, three-year grant by auto parts-maker
Lear Corp. that pays 150 high-school students to tutor pupils at
Clark.

Sophomore Chanel Kitchen said teaching a sixth-grader two
hours a week gives her $16, as well as a boost for her college
resume and maybe for her troubled city.

“Helping one child is a start,” said Kitchen, 16, who
plans to be a lawyer. “That small change might spark somebody
to be mayor of Detroit, or just help them with their
education.”